Question 6: What is my publishing budget?
Publishing costs money. Have you created a budget for the financial investment of bringing your book to market?
Professionally publishing, printing, distributing, marketing, and selling a book can cost $20,000 or more.
Traditional publishers underwrite their publishing cost by publishing only well-known or celebrity “commercially viable” authors, guaranteed to sell thousands of copies.
Traditional publishing is simply too risky and too costly to take a chance, even on a well-written manuscript, if the author doesn’t already have an audience in the multiplied thousands.
“Self-publishing” companies charge their authors for “publishing services.” That’s their business. After the book is printed, the authors are almost always left to fend for themselves while the “self-publishing” company continues their pursuit of other authors with the money to pay for their services.
These companies are in the business of selling cheap, fast services and aren’t necessarily interested in whether or not your book sells a single copy. The sad thing is, that by the time you’ve added up all of the self-publishing “options,” your book costs the same or more than the cost of professionally publishing with True Potential.
Professional cover design, editing, interior design and every other critical process in creating a world-class quality book aren’t “optional”; they’re standard in every publishing package we offer. The quality of your book should never be determined by the price of your publishing agreement.
Remember, we’re in the business of selling books. Our real revenue comes from the same place yours does – readers buying books!
So why charge you anything? Why don’t we just cover the cost of publishing your book, like the traditional publishers do, and make our money selling books? If we did, we’d be in the same boat as the traditional publishers; always scrapping for a few celebrity authors and never taking the effort or the risk of developing new authors and helping them grow their audience.
We’ve come up with a better answer.
We can show you how to sell enough copies of your book to completely cover your publishing cost, and make a profit!
At the same time, we’ve got your book in our distribution system, available anywhere books are sold, including Amazon and our own online stores and we’re helping you build your audience and selling your book as we go.
Some of our most popular authors began with our publishing packages, successfully sold their books, and grew their audience to the point where we now cover the cost of publishing their books through a traditional publishing agreement.
These authors invested in themselves. True Potential invests in quality editors, artists, and designers and millions of dollars in distribution and marketing infrastructure and relationships. Together we created books and built an audience that made our authors and us successful in reaching the world with their message.
Here are some questions that will help you create a publishing budget.
(click here to download a printable budget worksheet)
1. What financial investment is required to have my book professionally published, printed, distributed, and marketed?
2. Are there any “extras” in one publishing package that are standard in others?
3. What other investments should I consider (marketing, website, etc.) to make my book a success?
4. What plans do I have now to make that investment when I’m ready to publish?
5. Do I have a marketing/audience building process in place that will quickly recoup my publishing investment by selling my book as soon as it’s available?
Will your book succeed or fail?
Seven Questions You Must Answer Before Publishing Your Book
How to define success, choose a publisher, and reach your audience.
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Seven Questions You Must Answer Before Publishing Your Book
How to define success, choose a publisher, and reach your audience.
Where do you start?
Read Seven Questions You Must Ask Before Publishing Your Book
These seven questions have the power to reveal the real reason for your book – your reason for writing it and the reason your audience will read it. These questions will walk you through the jungle of finding and building your audience and the maze of publishing choices you’ll have to make. Finally, these questions will cover the real cost of publishing and marketing a successful book, whether in dollars or blood, sweat, and tears. Publishing a successful book and sharing it with the world isn’t easy or cheap, but it’s possible. And because it’s your book, your story, even your legacy, the rewards it can offer are beyond what you may imagine.
